Hey Joe,
Again I sincerely thank you for all the thought, time and effort you put into your responses, even though we may end up agreeing to disagree I think we both have spent our time well in seeking a better understanding.
Amen, my friend, Amen.
Now, getting back to your original subject of Jonah’s gourd, which Beloved has perhaps tried diligently to keep our eyes focused on and I have, it may have seemed to some, been diligent in trying to divert your attention away from (sorry Beloved).
Here are some thoughts that I had while studying this book that I hope may contribute to our understanding.
Perhaps the only things that link Jonah to Jesus are the events on the boat and the subsequent three days and three nights in the belly of a great fish. His attitude throughout the book is definitely far from what could be considered Christ-like. But what I also see is a parable of the process that many of us take as He drags us in our journey to understand Him and His dealings with His creation.
From the moment the book of Jonah begins, it seems Jonah’s heart is filled with anger. Jonah was a prophet to Israel. II Kings 14 tells us that he prophesied during the time of the reign of Jeroboam son of Jehoash of the northern kingdom of Israel. By this time, the nation of Israel had been split in two and the two separate kingdoms of Israel and Judah had begun warring against each other. So, when called by the Lord to go to Nineveh, a pagan city and capital of the Assyrian empire, he may have felt that he was being pulled away from his calling to affect some kind of change for his own countrymen. Why would God want to even bother with these fish-worshiping people in Nineveh when there’s so much more work to be done with His chosen people, the Israelites? So he runs away, an attempt at rebellion to show God that He is in the wrong and he, Jonah, is in the right.
I think perhaps Jonah at this point in time may represent those who don’t really know God. They may or may not believe in God, but either way they run and run, trying to get away from this idea of a Creator, a being who created everything and is in control of all. They become angry at God for trying to control their lives. They want to be their own person without the constraints of God telling them what to do. They have their own plans for their lives, and anybody outside of the scope of those plans is not really that important. “Can’t make me if I don’t want to,” seems to be the phrase of the day.
But then, lo and behold, something comes along and just mucks up that idea. One minute they’re asleep, content in their belief that they’ve done the right thing, and the next, BAM!, they wake up to find that not only have their actions brought on a serious “rough and tumble,” but that serious “rough and tumble” is affecting all those around them.
It’s at this point that what I like to call, the “Altar Call Experience” occurs. They realize that in order to calm the “storms of life” that rage around them because of their disobedience, they must give up their plans for their own life and accept Jesus as Lord. They’re thrown overboard into the sea where they lay dying in the belly of a great fish for three days and three nights. Through much prayer, they begin to recognize that God is in control and promise with all their heart to follow His ways. Then, miraculously, they’re resurrected into a new life, a new understanding of God and His ways.
Just as Jonah went straight to Nineveh in obeisance of God’s command, so too do these new Christians feel empowered to go out and “save the world for Christ.” They do everything they feel God is telling them to do with great joy. They talk of “spreading the fire” and “saving the lost.” But although they have a new understanding of God after their fish experience, that understanding is only in its infancy. Although intellectually, they understand that God is “slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity,” in their heart they long for all those evil and disobedient people out there to be destroyed, to “burn in the fires of hell” forever, because that's what they deserve for disobedience.
But when that doesn’t happen, in fact, God chooses to save those people that they thought should “go to hell,” they get angry, similar to the attitude of the older brother in the parable of the Prodigal Son. Then, in their stubborn self-delusion, they go off to pout, thinking surely their pouting will move God to remove His mercy from those heathen people. In doing so, they take solace in their own works. Just as Jonah built his little shelter to give him comfort as he waited for the destruction that he believed was coming, they believe that doing good works will comfort them as they wait for the fires of hell to consume the wicked.
But, alas, those shelters, those works of their own doing do not last. That Jonah’s shelter, which gave him shade for a time, did not last is evident from the fact that God had to send the gourd to grow up over Jonah to now give him shade. And when that happens, anger again takes hold.
Here are a couple of explanations (not mine) of what kind of plant Jonah’s gourd may have been:
…a plant very commonly used in Palestine and elsewhere to cover and give cooling shade to arbours…its rapid growth and large leaves admirably adapting it to such a purpose, while the extreme fragility of its stem exposes it to a striking suddenness of decay, should a storm strike it or a caterpillar gnaw its root. One day it may be seen in its glory; the next, it hangs withered and dried up. This would exactly suit the narrative.…bottle gourd which belongs to Cucurbitaceae family. Cucurbitacins are complex compounds found in plants belonging to the cucumber family (Cucurbitaceae). The tetracyclic triterpenoid Cucurbitacins compounds are responsible for the bitterness in vegetables like cucumber, squash, eggplants, melon, pumpkin and gourds and are highly toxic to mammals.The latter article continues by saying that although the bottle gourd is not toxic to humans, it is only because of its bitterness that that is the case.
And Jonah’s life attitude, for the most part in this story, has certainly shown a tendency towards bitterness and anger. When things don’t go our way, we tend to relax back into those feelings and attitudes in which we are most comfortable. Even if those feelings are anger and bitterness, we tend to gravitate, usually unconsciously, towards those feelings that give us the most comfort, even if they are detrimental to us.
The truth of this can be seen in many psychological studies that show how some people tend to pick mates based on traits that their parents exhibited, even if those traits were ones that the grown children had consciously determined to steer away from in their selection process. They grew up being constantly being exposed to those negative traits from their parents, and that is what they’re used to, so when a possible mate comes along that exhibits those same traits, unconsciously they dismiss or overlook them because of the immediate feelings of “love and happiness.”
In that way, Jonah became happy and comfortable in his bitterness because that’s the attitude that he was used to having, it's what he was comfortable in. I see the gourd, however, as not only representing Jonah’s life and his experience of dealing with his carnal attitudes, but also as a representation of all mankind and our experiences overcoming our own carnality, which many of us find hard to give up. A life based on carnal living may seem green and full of life, but in reality it is a life that keeps one susceptible to "extreme fragility" and " a striking suddenness of decay." I suppose it could relate to the parable of building upon the Rock vs. the sand.
But then along comes the worm. The Hebrew word here is
towla`, and in addition to being translated as 'worm' throughout the OT Scriptures, it’s also translated as ‘scarlet’. Some scholars believe this is because it refers to the ‘coccus ilicis’ worm. Here are one description:
When the female of the scarlet worm species was ready to give birth to her young, she would attach her body to the trunk of a tree, fixing herself so firmly and permanently that she would never leave again. The eggs deposited beneath her body were thus protected until the larvae were hatched and able to enter their own life cycle. As the mother died, the crimson fluid stained her body and the surrounding wood. From the dead bodies of such female scarlet worms, the commercial scarlet dyes of antiquity were extracted.I see this worm as representing Jesus and his sacrifice to cover all of us with His blood. Though worms can be thought of in Scripture as bad things, here is one Scripture that could be prophetically used to describe our Savior.
Psalm 22:6ff But I am a worm (towla`),
and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people. All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head, saying, He trusted on the LORD that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.I could be off base, but that is what I currently see. Just as the worm destroyed the bitter gourd, so too Jesus - as the One who was despised and rejected of men, taunted on the cross to save Himself as He saved others - destroys the bitterness within our hearts through His sacrifice on the cross, staining and covering us with His blood
And it’s after the true acceptance of that sacrifice that, whether now for the elect or later in the judgment, God will send His east wind to judge us and usher us into our wilderness experience.
The east wind in Scripture is many times associated with judgment. It was the east wind that brought the plague of locusts to Egypt.
Exo 10:13 …and when it was morning, the east wind brought the locusts.The east wind is associated with the seven years of famine in Joseph’s time, represented by the seven thin ears of corn in Pharaoh’s dream.
Gen 41:6 And, behold, seven thin ears and blasted with the east wind sprung up after them.
It can also describe the beginning of a type of wilderness experience where we are taught to lean more on the blood of Christ for our sustainment. For example, the east wind is the one that dried up the Red Sea during the Exodus, through which the Israelites crossed and then entered into their own experience of God in the wilderness.
Exo 14:21 And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the LORD caused the sea to go [back] by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry [land], and the waters were divided.Ezekiel describes the nation of Israel as being dried up by the east wind and planted in the wilderness.
Eze 19:12ff But she was plucked up in fury, she was cast down to the ground, and the east wind dried up her fruit: her strong rods were broken and withered; the fire consumed them. And now she is planted in the wilderness, in a dry and thirsty ground.This is obviously not an easy time. Jonah is now angry because the ‘worm’ took his only comfort away and now he’s suffering through the east wind in the wilderness. I think we’ve definitely seen examples of this lately in our own forum here where the carnal nature is loathe to release its grip in the face of trying circumstances. Even with our acceptance of the blood of Christ, we are still veiled with flesh and blood, which will keep us from fully experiencing the glory of God by allowing our carnal attitudes to occasionally present themselves. But it’s all for a purpose.
God reminds Jonah:
Jon 4:10 But the Lord said, "You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight.This sounds a lot like James:
James 4:14 Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a little time, and then vanisheth away.It is God who sustains us in all things. It is God who will deliver all of us from this flesh, each in our own time as planned by God. And whatever troubles we have now, we can take heart, because it is nothing compared to the glory that will be revealed at His coming.
I'm sure there's much more to be dug out, but that's just the way I see the story right now. Then again, perhaps I’m reading too much into it.
Thoughts?
God bless,
Eric